Court Ordered Climate Change Report

Forced by court order to comply with a 1990 law and produce a Climate Change Report to Congress, in its waning days, the Bush Administration finally produced a 271 page report found on US Climate Change Science Program and begrudgingly acknowledged that climate change was very likely caused by human activity.

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A concerted effort by the current Administration to deny the existence and effects of Global Warming and prevent positive, constructive efforts to address the problems, has delayed action by the US for almost 8 years.

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While other nations aggressively worked toward solutions, the US alone has stood out as the naysayer against global scientific consensus.

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Well, You Don't Say

White House admits humans causing climate change

The White House has begrudgingly admitted that "most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations." In a 271-page report -- court-ordered and four years late -- federal scientists have created a "one-stop shop" summary of potential climate impacts on the U.S. environment, economy, and public health. The report predicts stop-us-if-you've-heard-this-one heat waves, water shortages, and severe weather (oh my!), and notes that "many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and the uninsured." It also foresees a high-cost expansion of electricity capacity. "It basically says the America we've known we can no longer count on," says biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who reviewed the document. "It's a pretty dramatic picture of all kinds of change rippling through natural systems across the country. And all of that has implications for people." Grist

AP:

White House associate science director Sharon Hays, in a teleconference with reporters, declined to characterize the findings as bad, but said it is an issue the administration takes seriously. She said the report was comprehensive and "communicates what the scientists are telling us."

That includes:

• Increased heat deaths and deaths from climate-worsened smog. In Los Angeles alone yearly heat fatalities could increase by more than 1,000 by 2080, and the Midwest and Northeast are most vulnerable to increased heat deaths.

• Worsening water shortages for agriculture and urban users. From California to New York, lack of water will be an issue.

• A need for billions of dollars in more power plants (one major cause of global warming gases) to cool a hotter country. The report says summer cooling will mean Seattle's energy consumption would increase by 146 percent with the warming that could come by the end of the century.

• More death and damage from wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters and extreme weather. In the last three decades, wildfire season in the West has increased by 78 days.

• Increased insect infestations and food- and waterborne microbes and diseases. Insect and pathogen outbreaks to the forests are causing $1.5 billion in annual losses.

"Finally, climate change is very likely to accentuate the disparities already evident in the American health care system," the report said. "Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured."

The report was required by a 1990 law which says that every four years the government must produce a comprehensive science assessment of global warming. It had not been done since 2000.

Environmental groups got a court order last summer to force the Bush administration to produce the document by the end of this month. Hays said the White House has preferred issuing studies on individual global warming issues, such as an agricultural effects report that was released on Tuesday.

"It's totally begrudging," said Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch at the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, a whistleblowers' organization. "It's important the government go on record honestly acknowledging this stuff."
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On the Net:
The science report:
http://tinyurl.com/4hojv5
(This version CORRECTS that Lovejoy was not chairman of the review group))

And from the Wall Street Journal:

The conclusion? “[M]ost of the recent global warming is very likely due to human generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.” While there are still questions about the role of sunspots and other natural variations, the report says that “emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use and from the effects of land use change are the primary sources of this increase.”
As for the impacts, the report paints a fairly grim picture. In the short term, warmer temperatures and higher CO2 concentrations will be good for agriculture—before becoming a bad thing. The health impacts will probably be bad on balance—more malaria, Lyme disease and the like. Ecosystems will suffer. Water supplies will tighten.

And from the New York Times:

The last such assessment, undertaken during the Clinton administration and published in 2000, was attacked by groups and industries opposing restrictions on greenhouse gases. References to it were deleted from some government reports by political appointees in the White House.

Environmental groups sued to force the completion of a new study. In court, the White House contended that a series of more than 20 studies requested by Mr. Bush in 2003 satisfied the 1990 law, but Federal District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong rejected that assertion and said a comprehensive assessment had to be published by the end of May.

“The three-year delay of this report is sadly fitting for an administration that has wasted seven years denying the real threat of global climate change,” Mr. Kerry said in a statement. “In these lost years, we could have slowed global warming and advanced clean energy solutions, but instead America’s climate change strategy has been at best rhetorical, not real.”

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As a footnote, the NYT site provides a wide assortment of information and links.

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International Energy Agency